If you’ve ever owned a laptop or a netbook, you know that their batteries come with a finite lifespan. But what about a longer lasting alternative to powering up your computer? Fuel cells, namely hydrogen fuel cells, not only boast a longer useful life, but they are also capable of running for weeks without requiring a recharge. Not surprisingly, it is reported that Apple is looking into using this technology, recently filing two patents incorporating the cells.

Apple has updated their plans that describe their future headquarters yesterday. The updated Spaceship campus is now planned to include solar panels on its roof, and as ugly as it may have looked through the eyes of Steve Jobs, maybe, the idea is not bad – after all it will generate around 5 megawatts of clean electricity to power the factory where grown-up toys are made.

The Spaceship’s rooftop has been estimated to have around 750,000 square feet. 9to5mac.com, a website specialized in Apple news calculated that about 500,000 sq ft will be used for solar power. Assuming that an average solar panel produces around 10 watts per square foot, that gives the 5 megawatt figure.

Apple, ranked the least green of the big tech companies earlier this year, is moving quietly to repair its reputation by switching its vast east coast data centre from coal to solar power.

Local officials in North Carolina say the company is preparing to build a solar farm adjacent to its $1bn data centre in Maiden.

The facility could help Apple recover from a Greenpeace report earlier this year which said its cloud-computing operations – run from centres such as the one in North Carolina – were heavily reliant on dirty energy such as coal.

Apple Inc. has a number of patents, a couple of them really seem to be interesting. These were filed recently in February 2011. Apple is doing research in methods, which help in harnessing the solar energy to run all the portable devices. Five of these patents have been covered in this article. The first one is regarding assembling integrated circuit. The second one is about various methods to use the sunlight in-order to illuminate the display screen. The next patent is about the display screen, which is light sensitive. The fourth patent is to make all the Apple devices made in the future, to be grease and fingerprint resistant. The last patent is about integrating solar energy for all media players. Have a look:

YouTube and The Walt Disney Co. announced on Monday they are teaming up to produce an original video series and feature “family-friendly” Disney programming on the popular video-sharing site.

Disney Interactive and Google-owned YouTube said the programming will be available on Disney.com and on YouTube and the “complementary online video destinations” will launch in early 2012.

“Disney Interactive will produce and program the co-branded video destinations for both Disney.com and YouTube, providing a family-friendly experience for viewers across both platforms,” Disney and YouTube said.

I have a pretty state-of-the-art 2011 Sony LED TV, complete with Hulu Plus, Netflix and YouTube apps. Yet it still usually takes me about a dozen clicks on a button-rich remote to get to what I want to watch. By the time you actually load up the latest Daily Show, your dinner is getting cold and your drink is getting warm.

Wouldn’t it be so much better if you could simply tell your TV what you wanted to see, when to pause or when to turn the volume down? The remote could stay hidden down the back of the couch for good. You could ask for a specific show or YouTube clip, or just be wonderfully lazy and say something like “play me a new sitcom.”

Apple plans to build a solar farm next to its massive data center in Maiden, N.C., according to a Charlotte Observer report.

The company has won approval to reshape the slope of 171 acres of vacant land it owns adjacent to the data center in preparation for a data center, according to permits issued in Catawba County. However, the permit offered no details about the solar farm project itself–dubbed Project Dolphin Solar Farm– including its size, the newspaper noted.

The US Patent and Trademark Office just revealed that Apple has been granted 20 new patents which focus on next generation solar technology. According to PatentlyApple, the patents not only cover solar technology being used to extend the battery lives of personal devices, but will also see the development of a cool new product – a specialized back panel reflector that uses sunlight to illuminate laptop screens.